This is about trying to keep children and adults safe from killer drugs in the UK, USA and worldwide.

Dr Ben Goldacre’s AllTrials campaign is looking more and more like a front to ensure Pharma can keep on killing people for money with dangerous drugs and cover up the scientific data which shows it.On one side is Dr Ben Goldacre screaming like a shrill shill “its lies, all lies” and little else, [like facts to back his denials up]. All Dr Goldacre needs to do is avoid answering the criticisms to convince people “its true, all true“.

On the other side is drug safety expert Professor David Healy setting out facts on his latest blog with his take on them in a series on Goldacre’s “AllTrials” campaign which he likened previously to a Trojan Horse: Sense about Science: Follow the LawsuitJune 16, 2014.

The impression Dr Goldacre gives is that he is little more than the drug industry’s front man. Goldacre is supported by not-for-profit “Sense About Science” [which seems anything but sense about anything]. Sense About Science is an industry founded not-for-profit who are really running the AllTrials campaign and not Goldacre. It looks like at least some of the 80,000 people who have subscribed as AllTrials supporters on the back of Dr Goldacre’s efforts and of those who donated over £40,000 [US$70,000] to Goldacre’s fundraising efforts for Sense About Science have been duped.

Goldacre has posted on Healy’s blog claiming repeatedly that Healy’s facts and conclusions are all lies. Goldacre stamps his little foot and screams and screams, showing himself up whilst in the process convincing the reader he has no answers to the criticisms. [If Goldacre had any, you will not see them in his comments on Healy’s blog. See Goldacre’s most recent comments here and here. So much for Goldacre’s claims to believing in scientific debate and peer review when he does not answer challenges with facts.]

Professor David Healy reveals information about how GlaxoSmithKline has been hiding information about killer drugs which it presents as safe and effective when they are not, like Paroxetine which causes children to commit suicide when supposedly meant to treat depression. Professor Healy states:

Right now today GSK are refusing to tell the children who have been injured by their drug in Study 329 that they were injured by their drug. Tomorrow GSK will do the same and tomorrow and tomorrow. ….. The reason GSK, Pfizer, Lilly and AbbVie don’t want anyone to get access to the data is so that no-one can access the damage. No-one can find out about the Dan Markingsons who die or are injured in company trials. They are not doing this out of a concern for Dan Markingson’s confidentiality. They are doing it in order to avoid being sued.”

If you thought AllTrials was about getting all drug trial data published and so opened up to scientific scrutiny, like Dr Ben Goldacre and cronies want you to think, then you and 80,000 other individuals who publicly backed AllTrials on that basis and some who donated towards over £40,000 [US$70,000] at Goldacre’s exhortations, seem to be wrong, judging by the information Professor Healy reveals.

Professor Healy also quotes evidence given by Tracey Brown of Sense About Science to an English Parliamentary investigation and another well-informed medical commentator also explains in detail here.

Tracey Brown was asked by the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee on 15 May 2013:

Ms Brown, just to be clear, is the aim of the campaign to have all four levels published?

Tracey Brown: No, …… What we are finding out is that “full” means something different for different people ….“

Different people? Now who could she mean? GSK signed up in February 2013 and this evidence was in May 2013. And Ms Brown says “What we are finding out“. So Sense About Science [ie. Ms Brown] was in the process of finding out from GSK – an organisation instrumental in founding and originally funding Sense About Science and thus getting Ms Brown her job [after she abruptly jumped ship from Marxism to back capital following the end of the Cold War] that GSK do not want full scientific disclosure of the data.

If you gave money to Dr Ben Goldacre’s fund-raising campaign and feel you were duped are you going to email Dr Goldacre and ask for your money back? How about unsubscribing from AllTrials? What chance is there that Marxist Ms Brown will willingly let you do that?

Dr Ben Goldacre has cultivated a public image of a tousled unkempt irresponsible geeky young man to appeal particularly to the under 25 year-old childless males and the over fifty men who apparently predominantly populate the ranks on sites like Dr David Gorski’s ScienceBlogs blog and Dr Ben Goldacre’s BadScience Forum. These are sites where you can see rampant untrammeled internet abuse, bullying and harassment of anyone who does not agree with them by one too many of those who infest those sites.

And now what we seem to be seeing, in our interpretation, is the cultivation of a particular image of Dr Ben Goldacre who seems to be fronting industry manipulation through the internet and social media by use of the such an image. What else can it be? Professor Healy has given Dr Goldacre numerous opportunities to comment and set the record straight. Dr Goldacre seems to respond with a lack of facts mixed with his brand of bullying and accusations and not much else.

But the unvaccinated are not to blame. There are two issues. The vaccine does not work and to the extent it might the vaccinated can still contract the infection without showing symptoms and pass on the infection to the unvaccinated and to the vaccinated in whom the vaccine does not work.

CHS previously reported FDA research confirming whooping cough vaccine does not provide herd immunity and that the disease continues to be easily transmitted amongst the vaccinated and flourishes, passing on the disease to the vaccinated and unvaccinated: Whooping Cough Vaccine Does Not Work – Says US FDA’s Research

It is clearly time the medical professions faced up to their responsibilities of finding treatments for disease or else pass and let other forms of medicine take over. Conventional doctors are so dependent upon the marketing strategies of the drug industry that they have no treatments for basic childhood diseases that kill millions of third world children. Vaccine failure is high amongst poorly nourished children with no sanitation and clean water. Vaccines cannot work in poorly maintained immune systems which are themselves not working well.

But vaccine failure is not a third world issue. This is where the vaccines themselves fail and not where the individual’s immune system is not working well.

CHS has reported previously first world developed nations with whooping cough, MMR, flu and polio vaccine failures. There are consequent outbreaks in highly vaccinated populations and this appears to be part of a worldwide pattern of vaccine failure not limited to whooping cough vaccine:

There is a mumps “outbreak” reported in Ohio USA spreading in adults so far across 24 counties with 423 reported cases since March 6 in adults and children from 4 months to 80 years of age, despite high vaccination uptake. The majority of the cases are in the vaccinated: Mumps Outbreak Rises To 423 Cases In Central Ohio Friday, June 13, 2014 NBC4i By: Denise Yost.

MMR vaccine herd immunity is failing. Mumps in children is a mild self-limiting disease which is over in a matter of days routinely with extremely rarely any long-term consequence. It confers lifetime immunity. So it is much safer and far more beneficial for a child to contract natural mumps. If the opportunity to contract natural mumps as a child is lost, for example because of vaccination campaigns, mumps in adults can be more serious leading for example to atrophy of a testicle in males with a risk of sterility. Vaccine failure is now being reported routinely with large outbreaks of various supposedly “vaccine preventable” diseases occurring in highly vaccinated populations.

With polio having been reclassified since the 1940s and 1950s in one year there were in India 47,500 cases of paralysis following polio vaccination from the clinically identical non polio acute flaccid paralysis. NPAFP has twice the fatality rate of polio and occurs in line with numbers of polio vaccines administered: “Mysterious” polio-like illness affecting Calfornian kids

It is also remarkable to have so many news stories for an outbreak of mumps. There are more than 50 from NBC4i covering the period 6th March to 13 June. Over 50 stories in 3 months from which news of the outbreaks can be tracked.

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics claims the costs in the US of caring for individuals with the highest needs are $2.4m for each and every individual. This also does not include those who do not have the highest needs, so the effect of less severe autistic conditions is not included.

Autism costs the UK at least £32bn a year in terms of treatment, lost earnings, and care and support for children and adults with ASD, according to the study. This compares with £12bn for cancer, £8bn for heart disease and £5bn for stroke: Autism costs ‘£32bn per year’ in UK9 June 2014By Helen BriggsHealth reporter, BBC News.

With roughly 5 1/2 times the UK population and very broadly similar rates of autistic conditions the annual cost in the US will be in the region very approximately of US$300 billion annually.

A new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal confirms combining two common childhood vaccines into one rather than administering them separately doubles the risk of febrile seizures in children: Combined vaccine doubles seizure risk in childrenThe Vancouver Sun By Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen June 9, 2014.

What is particularly troubling is the clear admission that the ordinary MMR vaccine causes seizures. The excess absolute risk for MMRV [the combined MMR with chickenpox vaccine] is claimed to be 3.52 seizures per 10,000 doses. In other words, for every 7.04 children suffering a seizure for MMRV 3.52 children suffered a seizure for MMR vaccine with a separate dose of chickenpox vaccine.

However, the authors make no claim to adjusting the figures for under-reporting of adverse vaccine reactions.

The authors only took into account “Seizure events that involve presentation to the health care system in Alberta“. As infants can spend a great deal of time asleep unattended, any child suffering a seizure in their sleep may go unreported. Children who suffer seizures without significant external signs may also not be reported. Additionally, if it is assumed the rate of autism in Canada is similar to the USA and UK which is at least 1 in 100 children, then under-reporting does not have to be very high across each dose of all vaccines administered [ie. not just MMR but every shot including each dose of DTP] to achieve a figure of 1 in 100.

Adverse reactions to any drug can be under reported by 98 cases in every 100, which is extremely high. If that rate were to be applied to the figures in this study it is necessary to multiply the figures given out by at least 50 times for any adverse drug reactions as a rule of thumb as adverse reactions to all drugs are ignored 98 times out of a hundred: Spontaneous adverse drug reaction reporting vs event monitoring: a comparison: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Volume 84 June 1991 341. That would make the number of seizure events 350 in 10,000 doses or 1 in every 28 doses, including mild cases which may have few external signs and no permanent or longer term effects.

So this report is unfortunately not particularly reassuring even though the authors go on to claim that the numbers of children whose parents took them to be seen under the health care system of Alberta:

can be ascertained from 3 administrative databases: the physician claims database, an electronic fee-for-service system to which all physicians submit billing information; the ambulatory care reporting system, which includes emergency department visits; and the hospital discharge abstracts database. Previous epidemiologic studies have found that these data sources have a high level of completeness and validity.”

What these people also seem to fail to appreciate is that not only is the medical journal published evidence-base extremely unreliable with all kinds of junk studies and just plain drug industry falsified ones amongst the genuine [but possibly also flawed] research but also parents are repeatedly lied to by some public health offficials about the hazards of vaccines. So there is good reason to treat such claims with considerable scepticism.

If you want priceless “must read” stuff then Sense about Science: First Admit no Harm June 9, 2014 is yet another in a series of sensible, straight-talking tough blog posts from mainstream medicine’s drug safety expert Professor David Healy. This is a second post exploring Sense about Science. The first post is here: Follow the Rhetoric.

Anyone interested in Pharma will know about its ability to Astroturf – to create patient organizations whose role is to promote an illness or subvert an existing one. Creating awareness of conditions sells drugs.

Less well known is what happens at a higher Astral level. You can’t sell a product that gets a bad reputation or is removed from the market. The marketing mission at this meta-level is to risk manage by influencing the debate on Risk.

You do this by setting up think tanks, hiring ex-regulators, academics and others, capturing the regulatory system, and working with a body with a name like Sense about Science.

The regulators advise you on how to get an indication for a drug even though it doesn’t work for that. The academics advise on how to do trials that use a problem your drug causes to hide a problem your drug causes. The lawyers advise on the trials or studies that need doing in order for you to be able to defend the product in academic and legal settings.

All are involved years, perhaps a decade, before any sign of a legal action or public fuss. You are able to brief them on the likely legal actions or publicity you could face because the right hand already knows what problems your drug causes, even though the left hand never concedes anything – even after the drug has been removed from the market. It would be irresponsible to your shareholders not to have defences like this in place.

Click to read on to see the whole superb Healy article and you will not be disappointed:

And irony of ironies, here is Dr Ben Goldacre getting you all to give money to Sense About Science – raising funds so Sense About Science can run Ben Goldacre’s AllTrials campaign which is being so successful getting laws proposed to apply throughout the European Union which will ensure drug safety takes 101st place well behind drug industry profits in 1st.

Yes, dear readers, we have another one for you to laugh at from Australia, the land of the Ocker. But this one is truly bizarre and none of this is a laughing matter but it is one way to remain sane in such a crazy world. There are just so many “nut-jobs” in the establishment who not only think they should be taken seriously but demand they are, and the media just lap it up without a murmur.

OIG Fugitive: Poul Thorsen – From approximately February 2004 until February 2010, Poul Thorsen executed a scheme to steal grant money awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC had awarded grant money to Denmark for research involving infant disabilities, autism, genetic disorders, and fetal alcohol syndrome. CDC awarded the grant to fund studies of the relationship between autism and the exposure to vaccines, the relationship between cerebral palsy and infection during pregnancy, and the relationship between developmental outcomes and fetal alcohol exposure.

But this is worse. And it is not worse just because this supposedly “new” study is reporting information which is far from new and already well and seriously discredited before the authors even started work. That includes relying on a paper published by one of the US ten most wanted alleged criminals and alleged medical fraudster Poul Thorsen who allegedly took millions of US tax dollars to get studies written for the US Centers for Disease Control denying vaccines cause autism.

Scientific scrutiny is just that little bit more difficult when the author of the study is “on the run” from the law. Not much chance of getting his response to scientific criticism of that study.

How can the medical professions keep churning out garbage like this and keep public confidence? [Well, they are not. People are voting with their feet.]

And it is also not worse just because and even though we might compare what happens in a court with real evidence and when a real live case of a real live child is considered against all the available medical and journal published evidence in a detailed independent expert review including studies like this which never look at real cases. Not only does the Court find on the medical evidence the MMR vaccine causes autism, but also the government with its medical and scientific experts “threw in the towel” on that issue, recognised the evidence was overwhelming in just the case of one child and were left with arguing the family could not have compensation because MMR vaccination is not compulsory in the country concerned: MMR Vaccine Causes Autism – IV – Now Reported in English National Press.

What makes this study far far worse is the main author of the study cannot see anything wrong with his admission at the end of the study [in his somewhat weird “Epilogue“] that even though his children suffered serious vaccine adverse reactions not only did he still go ahead with more vaccinations, but he did what we here at CHS consider amounts to child abuse.

So this author of a study trying to tell everyone vaccination does not cause autism is wholly unaware that what he was doing was putting his child in harm’s way. This was of the very harm his paper is claiming is not caused by precisely what he did and when there is clear journal published evidence to show that.

This supposed medical “expert” gives no indication whatsoever in this paper that he even knew the risk to which he was putting his child. Children have no choice in the matter and are entirely dependent upon their parents to keep them safe from risk of serious harm like that. And remember, that if vaccines work as claimed it would not be necessary to subject his child to vaccination as the child would be protected by “herd immunity” according to vaccinology theory. So this was in CHS’ view an unnecessary risk to subject a defenceless child to.

And the reason why he was not aware of the risk? This shows just how poor his study is as evidence. His study excluded clinical evidence of real cases and only considered “tobacco-science” statistical studies. In fact the authors of the paper went out of their way to exclude literally thousands of papers to come up with just ten [yep thats right – just 10] papers and ten already known discredited papers at that.

And when we get around to actually looking at the supposed “new” study we find that what it was claiming to have found was not supported by any of the evidence the authors relied upon. How can this bizarre situation arise?

The supposed new study searched for journal published statistical studies for its starting point and then tried to amalgamate the results into one big “study of studies” – which is given the misleading jargon-name of “meta-analysis“. Now everyone knows that if you have a witness giving evidence in a court or public inquiry or a politician makes claims in public or a parliament and they lie about something, everyone loses confidence in their evidence and we have to chuck it out – abandon it as unreliable. It really does not help your case if you get ten witnesses like that. And of course it is even less helpful when none of the witnesses saw the events you claim they did.

So that is what this supposed “new” study achieves.

So just remember in future that with a big “study of studies“, a “meta-analysis” according to its fancy name, the normal rules are cast aside.

This is what the study authors claim to have found when that is not what the studies they analysed were looking at:

Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder.

And just so you can read it yourself, this is what the main author’s “Epilogue” says:

As an epidemiologist I believe the data that is presented in this meta-analysis. However, as a parent of three children I have some understanding of the fears associated with reactions and effects of vaccines. My first two children have had febrile seizures after routine vaccinations, one of them a serious event. These events did not stop me from vaccinating my third child, however, I did take some proactive measures to reduce the risk of similar adverse effects. I vaccinated my child in the morning so that we were aware if any early adverse reaction during the day and I also gave my child a dose of paracetamol 30 min before the vaccination was given to reduce any fever that might develop after the injection. As a parent I know my children better than anyone and I equate their seizures to the effects of the vaccination by increasing their body temperature. For parents who do notice a significant change in their child’s cognitive function and behaviour after a vaccination I encourage you to report these events immediately to your family physician and to the ‘Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System’.

And of course all the usual “whack-jobs” on the blogs like the crank Dr David Gorski on Scienceblogs and Respectful Insolence jump up and down proclaiming how this kind of evidence is the greatest thing since sliced bread and how it proves vaccines do not cause autistic conditions. The poison pen of Skeptical Raptor on permanent PMT went so far as to claim it is the final nail in the coffin of the claim vaccines cause autistic conditions. So what we can say is these are the last people on earth to take seriously.

The use of terms like “nut-job”, “whack-job” and suchlike are not CHS’ usual style. It seems necessary sometimes however to use the only language some people like Dr Ben Goldacre, his BadScience Forum, Dr David Gorski, Skeptical Raptor and others of that ilk understand.